New Delhi, June 13: Disgruntled BJP parliamentarian Shatrughan Sinha today termed L.K. Advani the "most suitable and deserving candidate" for the President's post, openly backing the sidelined veteran on a day Amit Shah started talks to draw up the strategy for the polls next month.

The actor-politician who met Advani in Kerala yesterday posted a series of tweets today, saying the 89-year-old was the "most deserving PM candidate" but had been "ruthlessly sidelined from playing his role". Sinha added that "good sense" should prevail on the BJP leadership and it should "bestow" on Advani the "honour he deserves".

"He is clearly the most suitable, learned, respectable, experienced, desirable and deserving candidate for the most prestigious post. I sincerely hope, wish and pray that good sense prevails on one and all and the Pitamah (patriarch) of BJP is bestowed upon with the honour," Sinha tweeted.

The strong pitch for Advani coincided with BJP president Shah's meetings with senior leaders Arun Jaitley and M. Venkaiah Naidu to strategise for the presidential polls a day before a united Opposition meets over the elections.

Shah met Jaitley and Naidu separately. A three-member committee comprising Rajnath, Jaitley and Naidu have been tasked by Shah to hold consultations with different political parties to "build a consensus" over the presidential elections scheduled next month.

Sinha's tweets were posted in the afternoon, hours after Shah's meeting with Jaitley and Naidu.

Officially, the party chose silence on the tweets, but several leaders were heard pitying Advani and many felt Sinha's support had extinguished whatever chance the veteran had to be nominated by the BJP for the President's post.

BJP leaders said Sinha's tweets had betrayed Advani's "desperation" for the top constitutional post and felt that it "looked improper" for a leader of his stature to "get" a party MP to pitch for him.

"An MP who has been sidelined in the party pitches for Advaniji, who himself has been pushed to the margins in the current scheme of things. This presents a hopeless picture," a senior BJP leader said.

Sinha, an MP from Bihar, is among a group of leaders who have been sidelined under the current dispensation and who occasionally take swipes at the Narendra Modi government.

During the 2015 Bihar elections, Sinha had been openly critical of his party while expressing support for rival Nitish Kumar. Recently, Bihar BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi demanded Sinha's expulsion from the party.

Although a section in the BJP had proposed Advani's name as the party's candidate for President, the leadership didn't show much interest, sources said. The sources said that when a minister tried to present Advani's case before Modi, the Prime Minister remained non-committal - neither declining nor accepting the plea.

Apart from Modi, the RSS was also not too sympathetic towards Advani, according to the sources.

The RSS, the sources said, feels that the 89-year-old Advani was too old to be President. The RSS is learnt to have proposed the names of some leaders, including Murli Manohar Joshi - who too has been relegated to the margins.

Apart from backing Advani, Sinha raked up the 2014 episode when Modi was projected as the prime ministerial candidate despite stiff opposition from Advani.

"Uncounted number of persons are there like me who admire him (Advani) & wanted him to lead the country. I often think how the most deserving PM candidate has been ruthlessly sidelined from playing his role. He has never been given any chance to show the country & the world what he could have done for us. Nobody in BJP or outside can challenge his experience," Sinha tweeted.